The Press Release: Why Video is Your Most Powerful Crisis Tool

In the last decade, the playbook for corporate crisis communications has been completely rewritten.

It used to be a simple, linear process: a problem would arise, a team would huddle, and hours later, a carefully worded, legally-vetted press release would be sent to the wire.

That playbook is now obsolete.

Today, a crisis doesn't wait for your press release. It explodes on social media in real-time. Rumors, misinformation, and outrage can build a "digital wildfire" in the span of a single lunch hour. In this new landscape, a faceless press release is like a bucket of water against a forest fire. It’s too slow, too impersonal, and it’s not what your audience is looking for. For our local clients in the NY/NJ area, this will spread quickly across the local “families” social media pages…think “Rye Familes” on Facebook.

In our tight-knit local towns, bad news travels faster than bad weather. A faceless corporate statement doesn't stop a thread in a local community group; only a human face can do that."

When your brand’s reputation is on the line, your audience doesn’t want to read a statement. They want to see a human.

This is why video production has become the single most powerful and necessary tool in any modern crisis communications plan.

Video Conveys Sincerity and Empathy (Text Cannot)

This is the most important reason. A press release is, by definition, a "corporate" document. It’s faceless. It's cold. It’s processed.

• A press release can say, "We are deeply sorry and are taking this seriously."

• A corporate video of your CEO, looking directly into the camera, can show sincerity.

Authenticity, empathy, and remorse are human emotions. They cannot be conveyed in a PDF. They can only be conveyed by a human face, with real human emotion. This is the difference between a "statement" and an "apology."

Video Controls the Narrative

When you issue a text statement to News 12 or the Journal News, you are at the mercy of their editor. They will cherry-pick 1 park of your apology over stock footage of your building.

But local news stations in the Tri-State area are hungry for content. If you provide a broadcast-quality video statement, they will often run the clip unedited because it saves them production time. You effectively become the producer of the 6 o'clock news segment about yourself.

Video is Fast and Direct

A crisis happens at the speed of a "Retweet." Your response must be just as fast.

While lawyers are debating the fourth comma in a press release, you can be scripting, shooting, and uploading a direct video statement. As a B2B video marketing agency serving the NY/NJ metro areas, we have planned and executed urgent corporate video messages in a matter of hours.

Getting your message out on your own channels (YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.) before the traditional media forms a narrative is the only way to get ahead of the story.

But a Bad Video is a Disaster

This is the critical part. Using video in a crisis is not optional, but doing it poorly is catastrophic.

A poorly lit, badly scripted, or inauthentic, shaky video shot on a phone, will be seen as a "hostage video." It will make your brand look shifty, cold, and out of touch. This is not the time to have your marketing intern film the CEO on a laptop webcam in a dark, imposing boardroom.

Your crisis video strategy must be planned before the crisis hits. You need to know:

The Setting: We tell our clients to avoid the dark, mahogany boardroom because it screams 'Defensive Wall Street Firm.' In our market, transparency wins. A video shot in an open, well-lit office in White Plains, or even on a job site, signals that you are a local business owner taking responsibility, not a faceless corporation hiding in a skyscraper.

The Tone: Should it be a single, authentic take, or a polished, edited production?

The Script: How do you sound sincere and authoritative without reading like a robot?

The Technicals: Is the lighting and sound clean and professional, or is it distracting?

This is where professional corporate video services become a critical part of your PR and legal team. You don’t want to be vetting a video production company while your brand is in a freefall.

The "War Room" Dynamic (Who Is On Your Team?)

Executing this strategy requires more than just a camera operator. It requires seamless communication between your legal counsel, your PR firm, and your marketing/video production teams. If these three groups aren't talking to each other, the message gets lost in translation.

Don't have a crisis PR or marketing team in place? That’s okay. Over the last 25 years serving the NY/Tri-State area, we have built strong partnerships with some of the best crisis communication experts and PR agencies in the region. We don’t just hold the camera; we can assemble the entire "response team" for you, ensuring you have the right strategy, the right words, and the right visuals to weather the storm.

The best time to plan your crisis video strategy was last year. The second-best time is today.

Author Bio:

Mike Meyerson, owner of Absolute Motion, helping businesses and organizations in the NY Tri-state area for over 25 years.